


The Adventure Of The Prince-Saint (1900)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 221B [182]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, Johnlock - Freeform, Killing, M/M, Poisoning, Religion, Supernatural Elements, Theft, Untold Cases of Sherlock Holmes, relics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 01:42:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11636319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: One of the author's favourite adventures, despite the 'close shave' at the end. Rural West Suffolk is the setting for a theft and possible murder, in which Sherlock is called upon to solve the coldest of cold cases.





	The Adventure Of The Prince-Saint (1900)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lyster99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyster99/gifts).



> Mentioned elsewhere as 'the case of the ancient British barrow'. I am informed by my publishers that the term 'pitchblend' is, for some reason, now largely fallen out of favour, having been replaced by the ghastly 'uraninite' (which sounds to me more like a bladder complaint!). Scientists nowadays!

Sherlock and I rarely disagreed, and one of the few points of contention between us was over his definition of what constituted a 'failed' case. This is something I have had some questions from my loyal readership (I refuse to bow to my publishers' rare misjudgement in this matter, and refer to them as a 'fandom', whatever that is), in that I was sometimes asked why I did not publish any failed cases. In fact, Sherlock viewed several of the cases that I put out as failures, something I strongly disagreed with him over. For example, in the Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist his advent had prompted the husband in the case to bring forward the murder of his wife, something my friend could not possibly have prevented, yet for which he blamed himself even if he did secure justice against the man later on.

In this particular case, the great detective (again wrongly, in my humble opinion) regarded the outcome as a failure. He had been asked before to investigate cases that had happened some time before he had been called in – as Queen Molly once so rightly remarked, he was pithy over any delay – but never quite one where, it later emerged, the death had occurred in the thirteenth century! And yet he still solved it as far as was possible, despite a preternatural element that was.... strange. Although one that, as it turned out, we both had cause to be grateful for.

+~+~+

This was to be the first of two ventures into the county of Suffolk which, at the boundary changes effected in the previous decade, had been divided into West and East. It was to West Suffolk that we headed this time, the south-western part of the old Kingdom of East Anglia (I mention that historical snippet for reasons that will become clear later). The county town was, of course, Bury St. Edmunds, which Sherlock had promised that we would visit once the case was settled. I was pleased at that, having just returned from magnificent Durham and the strange case of the Millennium Falcon. 

Our destination was somewhere far more humble, the small village of Bury St. Germaine, which lay about three miles east of the much more famous county town. That meant a long journey on the Great Eastern Railway, first on an express to Ipswich and then a much slower train that chuntered its way across a sparsely-populated county until it reached Flexworth Halt (for Bury St. Germaine). Flexworth was in fact a tiny hamlet of some four houses, but it was customary in those days for railway companies to shun using similar names (i.e. two 'Burys') on nearby stations to avoid confusion.

I for one was glad to be leaving London behind for a while, as Sherlock had had still more problems with his family (yes, no change there), and I felt that a break would do him the world of good. A few weeks back, it had emerged that his disgraced brother Ranulph had not only somehow found a member of the female species who would marry him, but worse, she was a lady who bore the Holmes name (though not any relation), a Miss Irene Holmes. One could only express pity at her terrible lack of judgement in not seeing through her new husband who, typically, took her name on marriage, abandoning his brief existence as 'Mr. Newton'. If he had hoped that such a thing might bring him back into the family fold, he had been swiftly disabused, and efforts to secure that end by his equally obnoxious brother Mycroft had not helped matters. Sherlock had told me both that his mother had, on hearing what her third son had done, only narrowly been persuaded not to hunt him down with a shotgun (he had scowled at me when I had offered to supply any bullets she might have needed!), and also that, perhaps typically, his attempted rehabilitation had also been assisted by a certain tiresome lounge-lizard. The fact that Bacchus Holmes had also lied to Sherlock about a case to inveigle him into a family visit – well, my poor man looked drained by it all. 

Sherlock generally had one of two reactions to this sort of annoyance, namely either to go into sexual overdrive (of the sort that made my sitting down the next day intensely yet wonderfully painful), or to demand lots of cuddling. I had once held the belief that manly men did not cuddle, but I would have done so much more for the man I loved that just holding him, as we lay together like the old married couple we seemed to rapidly be turning into. Fortunately, this recent unpleasantness had led to the former reaction, as my aching backside could readily attest to. As did the humongous love-bite that was currently rubbing against my collar at every bump and jolt of the train.

I was so damn lucky! And not for the first (or hopefully the last) time, I thanked the Lord for the padded seats in first-class!

+~+~+

Our contact in Bury St. Germaine was the local vicar, the Reverend Thomas Stuart. His hobby was archæology, and I presumed that he must have been both excited and disturbed by what he had come across in his own church, literally right beneath where he presumably preached. He was a short, round-faced and dark-haired man in his early forties, and clearly passionate about both his work and hobby. Also a man of the most excellent taste; I recognized several of my own works on his bookshelf.

Someone was looking at me again!

“I should start by telling you about the history of the area”, he said once we were sat down in the vicarage, and Sherlock's eyes had lit up at the sight of coffee. “I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that it relates to our gruesome discovery of late.”

Sherlock downed his hot drink on one go, to the vicar's evident surprise. He poured him another before continuing, smiling slightly as he did so.

“St. Jurmin, to give him his name as it was in his own seventh century, was the only son of the Christian King Anna of the East Angles”, the vicar began. “Unfortunately for him, his family lived at a time when the pagan kingdom of Mercia next door was getting stronger, and Anna was defeated at Bulcamp near Blythburgh around the year 653. Jurmin, as far as we know, died in the battle, and was buried at the nearby priory. Anna was replaced by his brother Æthelhere, who was pretty much a Mercian puppet ruler, and East Anglia was never strong again. Jurmin became a saint like all his sisters, one of whom was the famous St. Ætheldreda.”

I nodded. I remember learning about that 'St. Audrey' at school, and how decorate braids sold at local fairs were named after her, later (and rather unfairly, I thought) devolving into the modern word 'tawdry'.

“We know that Jurmin came here and prayed before going to his last battle”, the vicar said. “People forget that the English did not become Christian overnight. He found that paganism was still going on, and on particular, the local people worshipped an ancient British barrow. That form of pagan worship was quite unusual for those times, and we do not fully understand why it took hold here and nowhere else in the area. Jurmin intended that his bones rest here, but although his father had the church built for him, Blythburgh refused to surrender his bones.”

“Are you saying that you think you have found those bones?” I asked, curiously. He shook his head.

“I am not quite sure”, he said. “I must move on with my tale. The area was afflicted by events surrounding the Battle of Lincoln in 1217, and it was claimed that the body of St. Edmund was taken away to France, Toulouse to be exact. At around the same time, the abbey stopped claiming to have St. Jurmin's remains, although what happened to them, we do not know. Of course, the abbey was destroyed in 1539 under the Reformation, and all records were lost.”

“What have you found?” Sherlock asked. He frowned.

“I am not sure”, he said. “What I can say is that it is a dead body, it is at least some centuries old - although we think it not old enough to be that of the saint - and that it was entombed in the old barrow. Horrible though it is to say it, there were scratch marks on some of the stones.”

I thought of some medieval baron sealing a faithless wife in a room, his men bricking it up as she screamed for mercy. I shuddered, and instinctively moved closer to Sherlock.

“Mine is a small church”, the vicar said, “as you have seen. Last year, we had problems with the roof, which was threatening to give way along one side. The problem turned out to be due to the two beams that were supporting it at that point, both of which were found to be in very poor condition. We had to remove that side of the roof completely, then take out and replace the beams, and that was when we found it. There was a second stone floor underneath the main one, on which the beams were resting.”

“A second floor?” Sherlock asked. The vicar nodded.

“Yes, I did not see why either”, he said. “Anyway, set in it was a stone trap-door, leading down into the old barrow. The upper floor had been laid right across it; underneath in the barrow was where we found the body.”

“What makes you think it is not the saint?" I asked. If I had been the vicar, I would have thought it a great find.

“That is the odd thing”, he said. “We found the remains of a New Testament down there that dated from the English Civil War, two hundred and fifty or so years back, which at first seemed conclusive. The body and the clothes that it was wearing were both beyond any form of recognition, of course. But then there was the box.”

I think that we were both a little lost by this point.

“We did not see it at first”, the vicar said. “Either there had been a roof-fall, or the dead man had tried to cover it up for some reason. Quite ornate, and I would have said that it was Byzantine, probably eleventh century. You see, that part of the church was rebuilt around the time of the Civil War, so it is possible that they may have discovered it, and then thrown the Bible in before re-sealing it.”

“But why would they not take the expensive box?” Sherlock mused. “I think that we need to see it. Is it to hand?”

“It is locked in my office at the back of the church”, the vicar said, rising to his feet. “We can go now, if you wish.”

Sherlock looked mournfully at his coffee-cup.

“Or maybe have another coffee first?” the vicar suggested, a twinkle in his eye.

I smiled to myself. He had clearly read my books well!

+~+~+

A little later, the vicar led us through the lovely old church to a heavy door at the back. 

“It is in here”, he said, pushing the door open. “I left it on the table for..... oh.”

He stopped. In the afternoon sunlight through the stained glass, the colours played on a dusty floor, where a large table stood. Judging from our host's crestfallen expression and the slight rectangular dust-free mark, something had once been on that table.

“Who had access to this room?” Sherlock asked. The vicar looked troubled.

“Just the verger, Mr. Quintus”, he said, looking decidedly anxious. “He has the only other key.”

“We must see him at once”, Sherlock said. The vicar looked even more troubled.

“That might be difficult”, he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because he is currently in an isolation ward at Bury Hospital, being treated for a rare form of chickenpox”, the vicar said glumly. “He left his key with me, and my dear wife insisted that I put it in the kitchen drawer because she knows how forgetful I am. She locked it in there for me.”

I looked around the little study, and noticed one thing in particular. The stained-glass windows were backed with a wire mesh which, whilst it could probably easily have been cut through, most evidently was still intact. And the door that we had just come through had shown no signs of forced entry. So how on earth had the thief gotten into this room?

+~+~+

Since a theft had taken place and it was a matter of some import, Sherlock decided that we should inform the local constable and then take him to the nearby town and the larger station there, which would also enable us to see the place. I found St. Edmund's cathedral awe-inspiring, but felt saddened when we walked around the ruins of the old abbey. 

“All this destroyed because that villain Henry the Eighth fancied Anne Boleyn”, I sighed. “Still, at least we got Queen Elizabeth out of it.”

Sherlock was looking at a small plaque for some reason. I joined him and read it. 

“This was where the bones of the saints were kept”, he said quietly. “St. Edmund's principally, of course. I wonder where St. Jurmin's remains were, exactly?”

The vicar, who had accompanied Constable Bailey to the town station, joined us at that moment and heard my question. 

“We are not sure”, he said. “I would still like to know the whereabouts of that box. I came from the room to meet you gentleman earlier and it was there then, so the thief cannot....”

He trailed off, evidently distracted by something or someone. We both followed his gaze to where a tall blond muscular man was kneeling some distance away, apparently lost in prayer. His hair was nearly as unruly as Sherlock's, and the beatific smile on the man's face was, I felt, more than a little unnerving. I was reminded of the description that Doctor Frinton had given of his godson's lover Mr. Isadora Persano in our recent Cornish case - 'rapture'.

“You know him?” I asked.

“That is Jeremy, our village simpleton”, the vicar said, evidently puzzled. “But what is he doing here? He never leaves the village.”

The young man stood up, dusted himself down and made to leave, but caught sight of the vicar. Smiling, he ambled over. I was reminded for some reason of one of those huge, over-friendly giant dog breeds that could probably flatten you with the best of intentions. And contrary to what some blue-eyed genius claimed later, I did not try to hide behind him!

Someone really needed to stop with the judgemental looks.

“Jeremy?” the vicar asked, clearly confused. “Why are you here?”

“Just checking in, vicar”, the man said cheerfully. “Saint said I should come here.”

“Jeremy was named for our local saint”, the vicar explained. “Um, what were you 'checking in' about, Jeremy?”

“Box, vicar. Saint told me where to hide it, then to come here and wait for you.”

I did a quick mental calculation. The vicar had told us before we had sat down that he had just left the box in his room, and that meeting had taken barely half an hour. Which in turn meant that this man had to have somehow gotten the box from behind a locked door without leaving any evidence of his theft, hidden the thing somewhere and then travel over three miles to get here, without seeming the least bit out of breath. And there was only one road between the two Burys. Something was very odd here.

“And where did you hide it, Jeremy?” the vicar asked gently.

“Saint said not to tell anyone, sir”, Jeremy said cheerfully. “But he said that I was to tell your two gentleman friends about the pitch.”

I stared at him in confusion, although I noted that Sherlock seemed to understand. He nodded.

“You did very well, Jeremy”, he smiled. “Can you tell me, was the box very heavy?”

The man's forehead screwed up as he thought.

“Not for me, sir”, he said. “But you might've found it heavy, I dare say.”

“And you are feeling.... all right?” Sherlock asked, which I thought a strange question. The man grinned.

“Saint said he'd protect me, sir”, he said. “Saint kept his word.”

“The saint is surely proud of you”, Sherlock said. “I do not suppose that they told you anything about the box or its contents? If you cannot tell us, that is quite all right.”

“Saint said they left the big church when the box arrived”, Jeremy said thoughtfully. “Bad man took saint's bones, and the box, but saint stopped them at his village. Bad man opened the box, and people got sick and died. They buried bad man in the barrow, with the box.” A strange smile came across his features. “Saint's home now, like he wanted.”

“Would you like to ride back with us on the train?” Sherlock asked. The man shook his head.

“Saint'll get me home”, he said confidently.

Sherlock nodded, and we resumed our tour of the place. I noted that when we left, Jeremy was still leaning against one of the walls, looking up to Heaven with that look of rapture once more. Weirdly, on that cloudy day, there was a single beam of sunlight that fell squarely on him. 

+~+~+

“There was a crime”, Sherlock said. “But as it happened nearly seven centuries ago, even my detective powers are strained to solve it. Indeed vicar, there are only two things of which I am absolutely certain.”

“What are those?” the vicar asked, as we got on the train for the short journey back to the village.

“Firstly”, Sherlock said, “you must tell this story to no-one; at least, not for as long as Jeremy is alive. I am sure that he will not speak out. And secondly, you must never, on any account, press him for the location of that box.”

“Buy why?” the vicar asked. Sherlock sat back.

“You told us earlier about the Battle of Lincoln”, he said, “in that important year of 1217. Although I am not usually disposed to believe in the preternatural, I think that in this case, what Jeremy told us about those far-off times was true. St. Jurmin's bones were removed from the abbey along with those of his more famous fellow-saint, but more importantly, the thief took the box they were in.”

“You will remember that one of the questions I asked Jeremy was about the _weight_ of the box. You, vicar, described a dark wood often used in Byzantine art, but that wood is not particularly heavy, yet the box was. One would normally suspect the contents of the box of causing that, but fortuitously a recent scientific advance leads me to suspect otherwise, and perhaps to prove Jeremy's words all too true.”

“Last year, there was a study concerning the strange properties of certain chemicals, which seem somehow to change without any external input, and to emit a form of energy when so doing. One such substance is known to be present in small amounts not far from this district. It is called pitchblende.”

That was what Jeremy had meant when he had talked about 'pitch', I thought.

“So where does that leave us?” Sherlock said. “Let us assume that, some time before the bones were taken, the monks at the abbey discovered some of this material. We know that it has the power to make people sick and even die in some instances; presumably as with most things, closeness increases the danger. The monks faced a quandary; how to get rid of it without innocent people suffering? I cannot but wonder if, given the facts, their first solution was to 'call in the reserve', and place the bones of their second-most famous saint in a box with the material? We know that the saint's bones disappeared at some time. That failing, their solution was to apply heavy lead lining to an ornate wooden box, and place the pitchblende inside, presumably still with the bones of your saint. One can only presume that they realized, or maybe guessed, that lead slows the 'leakage'.”

“So the box was deadly?” the vicar asked, horrified. Sherlock nodded.

“All was well, until a greedy baron decided to add to his haul of saintly bones by taking the box as well”, Sherlock said. “When he reached your village, he must have opened it, to cause the sudden increase in deaths. That, I must admit, is one part that I do not understand.”

“Why he opened it?” I asked. Sherlock shook his head.

“How he had the key”, he said. “The monks would surely have throw it away, having neither the need nor the desire to ever re-open the box. And you yourself, vicar, told us that the box had not been forced. Yet somehow, the baron was able to open it. As a result, the villagers started dying, and naturally they linked their misfortune with the newcomer, correctly in this instance. He was overpowered and buried with the box – again, you will note, under a heavy stone floor. One may presume that the villagers saw the lead lining, and decided to add their own layer of protection.”

“And the Bible?” I asked.

“The cellar must have been inadvertently discovered during repairs or renovations to the church sometime during the Civil War, and possibly more deaths ensued”, Sherlock said. “The people of the time immediately re-sealed it, throwing in God's word as an added protection from their own age, and a second stone floor for good measure. Bearing in mind that that was some four centuries after it was first opened, the fact that it was still causing deaths is quite worrying.”

The vicar frowned at something.

“But when I had the box, it was still locked”, he said. “Yet if you are right, it must have been opened at least twice.”

“That is the second curiosity”, Sherlock said. “The third, of course, is how your village simpleton got through a locked door and obtained it, and the fourth, as to how he was unaffected by its contents, for he would have to have held it whilst transporting it. As I said, I am not predisposed to believe in the preternatural, but in this instance, the evidence seems to support that as the only explanation.”

The train drew to a halt at Flexworth, where the vicar had arranged for his carriage to come and meet us. But as we drove back up to the vicarage, I saw something that made my hair stand on end. Jeremy, large as life, cutting the grass in the churchyard and clearly some way into his task, as it had all been longer earlier. How in God's name had he got back here before us? And once again, in a cloud-filled sky there was a single ray of sunlight illuminating him.

I looked skywards and gulped.

+~+~+

Our 'preternatural' day was not quite over. At Ipswich we boarded the express to London, and as we drew near the capital, I noted that Sherlock seemed to be growing more thoughtful, presumably fretting over his awful family. So when I asked if there was anything I could do to help, I suppose that I was effectively asking to end up being forced against the door-frame as he thrust into me with that sort of savage abandon that, I knew, would have him needlessly apologizing later on.

We were both so intent on our coupling that neither of us noticed that the train had drawn to a halt in Liverpool Street Station. He was still thrusting lazily into me when a shadow loomed against the blind I had pulled down on the platform side, and a man's voice could be heard outside.

“Look, George, this will be the next express out, and I am not waiting on a cold platform when I can have a nice warm carriage!”

I stared across in horror. I had forgotten to lock the door, and we were at least a yard away from it!

There was a mild curse from outside.

“Locked, damnation!” an exasperated voice said. “Someone's coming out of the next one. We'll take that.”

We both frantically pulled ourselves together, even though I was sure that I, at least, looked like someone who had been thoroughly (and most satisfyingly) ravished on a train.

“I did not see you lock the door”, Sherlock said curiously as I checked the door.

It was unlocked. We both stared at each other.

+~+~+

Next, another treasure-hunt brings both satisfaction and disappointment for our next client as we start a run of three cases with a monetary connection.

**Author's Note:**

> It was pointed out to be by one reader that railway carriages could not be locked from the inside. However, as many Victorian travellers knew, the careful placement of a coin in the door mechanism had the effect of preventing anyone from entering.


End file.
